It does seem that the scale of the Galaxy has lead to this knee-jerk solution. There is a valid issue that they're trying to address. The feeling of realistic galactic scale and its science based approach is the USP for the Elite franchise and why we are attracted to it. However, the lack of content has meant too much tedium for many players. I totally get that.
The issue is that there isn't enough to do in local areas. There are different careers to pursue and we switch between them to keep things interesting. Each career needs a ship tailored to the role and so we end up with at least 4 or 5 ships. The development process has been focused on making the game enjoyable and interesting and so they have introduced various activities such as landing on planets, powerplay, engineers etc, all of which I mostly ignored. Wings added a way to team up with your friends and have fun. The issue then is that you're light years away from your friends and so are your ships. So here we are with teleportation and the loss of that special USP.
This has come to pass, in my opinion, because the development team have been looking for alternatives instead of addressing the actual problem. Lack of local content. I've always believed that this would come in time, now I'm not so sure.
They need to get a team together to review how this works. I'd like to see hubs for activity spread around the bubble. I'd like to see faction allegiances mean something, allied with one means that you are a target for another (yes like powerplay but in the main game). Pirating would cease to be random and allegiances would mean better prices or access to this that or the other. I'd like to see factions control regions of space and for that mean something. Perhaps each hub could have a story arc of some sort. Federation and Imperial space should be practically mutually exclusive. Accessible but hostile if you cross the border.
The point is that player groups would base themselves in these hubs until they're finished and move/defect to another. They would then never be too far apart and be able to team up in a few jumps for that fun. The universe would remain large, rich and exciting. I think this is what we all signed up for at the beginning.
I must admit I'm confused that 18+ months into the game so much effort has been dedicated to content that doesn't actually deepen the gameplay and background sim. For example 2.1 simply gives us 25% more pewpew to do what we're already doing. 2.2 will give us an additional fighter to do what we were already doing. 2.3 will allow a group of us on a single ship to do what we were already doing...
Passenger transport offered a glimmer of hope of new gameplay, but it appears it's basically just cargo transportation under another guise.
I recall DB's Kickstart sales pitch, implying the background sim and mechanics would be deep enough such that CMDRs could explore the galaxy, find rich areas of resources, mine it themselves or sell the details, and if it was prolific enough, platforms and stations and traffic would follow... Why are we still not moving towards that yet?
Do you recall the capital ship battle promo video from three years ago? Where is the depth that suggested would be in the game?
So here we are 18+ months into the game, with time being dedicated to CQC, increasing your pewpew by 25%, etc etc... Yet mining, piracy and crime and punishment etc all get ignored...
Yes it's great station look better. Yes it's lovely I can hear radio coms when approaching them. And it's nice I can see my target star in the distance when hyperspacing... But I'd forgoe all that just for some deeper gameplay/mechanics.
I've sort of given up hope for Season 2, and setting my sights on 3 now...
